Table Of ContentHumanism, Culture, and Language
in the Near East
Georg Krotkoˆ
Humanism, Culture,
and
Language
in the
Near East
Studies in Honor of Georg Krotkoˆ
Edited by
Asma Afsaruddin
and
A. H. Mathias Zahniser
Winona Lake, Indiana
EISENBRAUNS
1997
The publication of this volume was made possible by generous donations
from:
• The Department of Near Eastern Studies, the Johns Hopkins
University
• The Middle East Students Association, the Johns Hopkins
University
• Mr. Erik Harrell
• Dr. Wells Harrington
• Ms. Maleka Khatun
• Ms. Diane Krasner
• Mr. Firas Raad
• Dr. and Mrs. A. H. Mathias Zahniser
ç Copyright 1997 Eisenbrauns.
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Humanism, culture, and language in the Near East : studies in honor of Georg
Krotkoff / edited by Asma Afsaruddin and A. H. Mathias Zahniser
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 1-57506-020-5 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Arabic philology. 2. Aramaic language. I. Afsaruddin, Asma,
1958– . II. Zahniser, A. H. Mathias, 1938– . III. Krotkoˆ, Georg.
PJ6024.K78H48 1997
492.7—dc21 96-51074
CIP
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1984.†‰
Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . viii
Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x
Publications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxii
Introduction: Georg Krotkoˆ as Scholar and Teacher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
P 1
ART
Humanism, Culture, and Literature
George Makdisi • Philadelphia
Inquiry into the Origins of Humanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Michael G. Carter • New York
Humanism and the Language Sciences in Medieval Islam . . . . . . . . . . 27
Julie Scott Meisami • Oxford
Cosmic Numbers: The Symbolic Design of Nizamÿ’s Haft Paykar. . . . 39
Fedwa Malti-Douglas • Bloomington, Indiana
Playing with the Sacred: Religious Intertext in Adab Discourse. . . . . . 51
Werner Ende • Freiburg, Germany
From Revolt to Resignation: The Life of Shaykh Muhsin Sharara . . . . 61
A. H. Mathias Zahniser • Wilmore, Kentucky
S¿ra as Guidance and Exhortation: The Composition
of S¿rat al-Nisaå . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Barbara Freyer Stowasser • Washington, D.C.
The Hijab: How a Curtain Became an Institution and
a Cultural Symbol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Roger Allen • Philadelphia
The Development of Fictional Genres: The Novel and
Short Story in Arabic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Issa J. Boullata • Montreal
An Arabic Poem in an Israeli Controversy:
Mahm¿d Darwÿsh’s “Passing Words” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Asma Afsaruddin • South Bend, Indiana
Bi-lçArabÿ al-fasÿh: An Egyptian Play Looks at
Contemporary Arab Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
v
vi Contents
P 2
ART
Arabic
Carolyn Killean • Chicago
Learning Arabic: A Lifetime Commitment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Karin C. Ryding • Washington, D.C.
The Alchemy of Sound: Medieval Arabic Phonosymbolism . . . . . . . . 155
Karl Stowasser • College Park, Maryland
Al-Khalÿl’s Legacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Wolfhart Heinrichs • Cambridge, Massachusetts
The Etymology of Muqarnas: Some Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Manfred Woidich • Amsterdam
Egyptian Arabic and Dialect Contact in Historical Perspective . . . . . . 185
Benjamin Hary • Atlanta
On Later and Modern Egyptian Judeo-Arabic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Hans-Rudolph Singer • Germersheim
Ein arabischer Text aus Constantine (Algerien) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
P 3
ART
Aramaic
Anton Schall • Heidelberg
Zur griechischen Nebenüberlieferung im Syrischen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
John A. C. Greppin • Cleveland
Syriac Loanwords in Classical Armenian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Robert D. Hoberman • Stonybrook, New York
The Modern Chaldean Pronunciation of Classical Syriac . . . . . . . . . . 253
Gary A. Rendsburg • Ithaca, New York
Double Polysemy in Proverbs 31:19 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
Otto Jastrow • Heidelberg
Zum neuaramäischen Dialekt von Hassane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
Michael L. Chyet • Berkeley
A Preliminary List of Aramaic Loanwords in Kurdish . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
Yona Sabar • Los Angeles
The Story of Balaam and His She-Ass in Four Neo-Aramaic
Dialects: A Comparative Study of the Translations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
Edward Y. Odisho • Chicago
A Comparative Study of Pet Names in English and Assyrian . . . . . . . 319
Contents vii
P 4
ART
Afroasiatic
Carleton T. Hodge • Bloomington, Indiana
The Trickle-Down Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
Herrmann Jungraithmayr • Frankfurt am Main
Ablaut im Verbalsystem osttschadischer Sprachen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345
Werner Vycichl • Geneva
Akkadian lisan-u-m, Arabic lisan-u-n: Which Is the Older Form? . . . . 355
P 5
ART
Ancient Egyptian, Ottoman Turkish,
and Other Linguistic Matters
Yoël L. Arbeitman • Princeton
You Gotta Have Heart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
Peter T. Daniels • Chicago
The Protean Arabic Abjad. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
Alan S. Kaye • Fullerton, California
A Matter of Inconsistency: Variations of Arabic
Loanwords in English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385
Claudia Römer • Vienna
The Language and Prose Style of Bostan’s Süleymanname . . . . . . . . . 401
Hans Goedicke • Baltimore
Language and Script in Ancient Egypt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429
Index of Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433
Preface
On a warm spring evening in the backyard of Georg Krotkoˆ’s cozy residence
in Baltimore, the plan to launch a volume of essays in his honor was conceived.
The occasion was a dinner party that was held to commemorate Georg’s retire-
ment from the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity after a distinguished thirty-year record of service. Among the invitees
were the three future editors of the volume in the making: Asma Afsaruddin,
Georg’s last graduate student at Johns Hopkins; Karl Stowasser, a dear friend
and colleague, who then taught in the Department of History at the University
of Maryland, College Park; and Mathias Zahniser, Georg’s former student, who
had gone on to a successful teaching career. The three of us agreed with great
excitement to undertake this project. We forged ahead, even though Diane
Krasner, Georg’s wife, whose assistance we enlisted, warned us ominously that
Georg would not be warmly predisposed to the idea. For those of us who know
our honoree well, it was a truism that he was of “the old school,” which meant,
among other things, that he did not subscribe to shameless self-promotion, nor
did he go out of his way to seek the accolades of his peers. The project was thus
conceived in secrecy and remained a secret for several months. In an unfor-
tunate development, Karl in the course of the next few years would contract a
serious illness and be forced to withdraw from the editorship. (It is our sad duty
to report here that Karl succumbed to his illness on Feb. 13, 1997, just a few
months before ˜nal publication of the volume.) As the two remaining conspir-
ators, we however continued full throttle ahead.
The response from Georg’s colleagues and friends who had been invited
to jump on board was overwhelming. We were greatly encouraged by the out-
pouring of support we received from the future contributors to this volume. As
the table of contents shows, their scholarly contributions re˘ect Georg’s own
eclectic and broad-ranging interests in philology, comparative linguistics, litera-
ture, history, and religion, both as distinct and as interpermeable disciplines.
A word about the various transliteration and transcription methods used by our
various authors seems apposite here: because of the many languages repre-
sented and the various scholarly conventions our contributors are accustomed
to, we have on the whole honored their own systems and have not attempted to
impose a global consistency on them.
Before the ˜rst year was up, we decided to summon all of our courage and
let the cat out of the bag, bracing ourselves for possible disapproval on Georg’s
part. To our relief, Diane’s dire prediction never came true. Georg was both
touched and ˘attered by our initiative and heartened by the robust enthusiasm
viii
Preface ix
displayed by his colleagues for participating in the project. The rest, as they
say, is history.
This volume, as all involved in its evolution know, has been seven years in
the making. We are grateful in particular to the contributors, who have borne
with us graciously for what must have seemed an unconscionably long time. It
was a rare opportunity for us to work closely with so many distinguished schol-
ars in such a worthy endeavor. On behalf of this special community of people,
we dedicate this modest tangible token of our aˆection and esteem to Georg
Krotkoˆ, teacher and mentor to some, friend and colleague to us all.
May you continue to prosper and keep on enriching our lives!
!˙nMW ˙l[P ñM AdjM ¶LaoT ˙lLA DAZ
Asma Afsaruddin Mathias Zahniser
South Bend, Indiana Wilmore, Kentucky
